This Fic Will Change Your Life!
by Qoheleth
Summary: A series of unrelated one-shots by several authors, each centering around one of the words in Douglas Adams's "dictionary of things there aren't words for yet - but there ought to be". Chapter 6: The Weasley twins go to Motspur.
1. Aalst

**Author's note: **The _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _fans in the audience may recall that its author, Douglas Adams, once wrote a book with John Lloyd entitled _The Meaning of Liff_, in which they took various place-names off maps and made them into words describing things or situations for which no words yet existed. (For instance, "**Woking:** Standing in the kitchen wondering what it was you came in there for.") The idea behind this fic is that each chapter uses one (or sometimes more) of these words as its central theme. Apart from that, the stories have no connection whatsoever to each other; in fact, not all of them are even mine. (If you wish to submit one, just cut and paste it into a PM, and I'll upload it with full acknowledgement of your name and forward its reviews to you.)

**Disclaimer:** Unless J. K. Rowling does something really unexpected, none of the participants in this fic will own _Harry Potter_.

* * *

**_Aalst_**_ (ay-AY-lst), n. One who changes his name to be nearer the front._

Hannah Wilkinson tugged nervously at her pigtail as the Sorting Hat serenaded the Great Hall with the virtues of the four Houses. She looked around to see if any of the other first years were as sick with apprehension as she was, but, although she saw some remarkably queasy expressions (particularly on the face of the black-haired, bespectacled boy three rows behind her), she remained unconsoled. None of them, she felt sure, had fathers who would disinherit them if they wound up in houses other than Hufflepuff.

Not for the first time, she found herself wishing that her father had actually been able to attend Hogwarts as a boy. Maybe then he would have had a less idealised notion about the four Houses, and wouldn't have gotten this idea that being placed in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin was the mark of a deficiency in virtue. As it was, it was Helga's house or nothing with him, and Hannah, listening to the Sorting Hat's eulogy, felt her heart sink. Just? Patient? Unafraid of toil? None of those phrases seemed, at that moment, to describe her in the least. (Granted, neither did "brave at heart", "ready-minded", or "cunning", but that was scarcely relevant.)

She turned to the Hufflepuff table and sought out her brother Christopher's eye. A Hogwarts veteran currently entering his fifth year, he was just about the most empathetic person Hannah had ever known, and, when he saw the expression on his sister's face, he knew exactly what was going through her mind.

_It's__ okay,_ he mouthed. _It'll be over soon._

But it wouldn't, Hannah knew. That was the worst part of having a name like Wilkinson: you were always left to writhe during roll calls while the stupid Andersons and Blatchfords and Cartwrights got off easy. If only she could just run up there and squeeze the Hat on right now, maybe she could handle it, but...

Her thoughts were interrupted. The Hat had finished its song, and Professor McGonagall was coming forward with the list of names. "When I call your name, you will put on the Hat and sit on the stool to be Sorted," she announced.

She looked down at the parchment, and, for the briefest of moments, a flicker of puzzlement passed over her face. Only a handful of people in the Hall noticed, but to Hannah, who was one of them, the Deputy Headmistress looked almost exactly like her Uncle Chester when her mother had Confunded him to keep him from going into his spiel about house-elf liberation in front of the Minister of Magic.

The next moment, however, the impression vanished, and Minerva McGonagall was her usual, ironclad self. Hannah sighed inwardly, and readied herself for the agonizing wait ahead.

"Abbott, Hannah!" said Professor McGonagall.

Hannah nearly fell out of the line in shock. She was well aware how uncommon her Christian name was in the wizarding world; Mr Ollivander, when she had gone to buy her wand, had specially mentioned that he couldn't recall ever having a customer by that name before. So either some extraordinary coincidence had occurred this year, or...

She darted a second glance at the Hufflepuff table, and Christopher smiled secretly and ostentatiously replaced his wand inside the folds of his robes. Hannah's jaw hung open for a moment; then she felt a poke in her ribs, and her friend Lydia Moon whispered, "Well, Miss Abbott, aren't you going up?"

Slowly, the light of understanding dawned in Hannah's brain, and a broad smile suffused her face as she stumbled out of the line and headed for the stool.

_Maybe Daddy was right about Hufflepuff House, _she thought. _I'll bet a Gryffindor would never have done something like that for his sister._


	2. Ramsgate

_**Ramsgate** (RAMZ-gayt), n. A door that opens the opposite way to the one you expect. (All institutional buildings are required by law to contain at least twenty.)_

It was on the second day that Kingsley Shacklebolt fell in love with biros. He'd been as nervous as hell on his first day; fitting into Muggle life was hard enough without having a whole new political system to deal with, one fraught with its own competition and infighting. And being the secretary to the Muggle Prime Minister was no easy task even for one who did know the system. Hed gone to bed the first night almost shaking with nerves; keeping up appearances in front of the scheming, calculating denizens of a whole new world had seemed harder than any of the previous tasks hed faced as an Auror.

But on his second morning, when hed gained a lot more knowledge and felt a bit more comfortable as a Muggle, hed discovered his greatest ally. Biros. They were little miracles in blue, black and red. No smudges, no broken quill tips, no shortages of ink and they made up for the fact that he could no longer use Summoning Spells by being everywhere. In every drawer, on every table, somewhere there would lie an unassuming thin cylinder that could write a whole score of governmental reviews before giving up. It was the biros that gave him hope, that convinced him that he might just last out his time as a secretary/bodyguard to the most important man in England.

It was this biro-derived hope that enabled him to deal with his greatest enemy at Whitehall: the doors. Hed spent most of his first week crashing into them; some of them worked by a kind of automatic magic, but the rest worked on a completely random basis, if they worked at all. Some were to be pushed, some pulled, none were clearly labelled, and, above all and without exception, they all seemed to open in the opposite direction to the one in which Kingsley, usually with an armful of important papers, was attempting to open them.

It was on the fifth day, just as he was settling in, that he faced his greatest challenge of all: the door of the Leader of the Opposition. It was at the end of a long daunting-looking corridor, and as he approached it he realised with a sinking feeling that it was made of glass. Luckily, the man himself was working behind a large computer; all Kingsley could see was his bald head poking over the top, his eyes looking downwards and, thankfully, concentrating intently at what was on the screen.

The door had a handle, which, as far as Kingsley's limited knowledge of Muggle doors went, meant it was more likely to be a pull. Balancing his papers precariously on one arm, he reached for the handle and gave a small, unobtrusive tug.

There was no response from the door. Thankfully, the man inside was still staring at the computer, oblivious to Kingsley's efforts. Pushing the papers into a slightly safer hold, he leant confidently against the door.

It did not move.

Shifting the papers again, he tried another tug. The door still didn't budge, but the pull had the effect of rattling the glass which, to Kingsley's horror and embarrassment, made the man inside look up. Rapidly, Kingsley made a few more push-pull motions on the door, which stayed stubbornly in place. He looked desperately for some form of latch mechanism, and even stepped back slightly in case it was one of the automatic-open doors and hadn't yet realised he was here.

Inside the room, the man made an impatient sideways motion with his hand. Kingsley watched carefully and, baffled, repeated the motion himself. The man frowned, as though he suspected Kingsley of making a fool of him, and repeated the motion again, this time barking out a word that, to Kingsley, made the situation all the more surreal. "Slide!" Slide? Was it a code? Did the man suspect that Kingsley was not an ersatz secretary? Was he trying to catch him out? He stared at the door, which offered no help, as his mind tried to make the word relevant.

Slide? What did it mean? Unless... He stared at the bottom of the door. Surely it wasn't that simple... was it?

Slowly and cautiously, Kingsley bent down and, to the complete confusion of the man inside the room, carefully slid the relevant papers under the door. This done, he straightened himself again, brushed the lint off the knees of his suit, and, ignoring the baffled sputterings of the man behind the door, strode back down the corridor, making a mental note to himself to let Dawlish take the bodyguard duty for the next imperilled Muggle leader.

**By Prieda Solo**

* * *

A/N for American readers: The Leader of the Opposition is the person who is the head of whichever political party is not in charge: i.e., at the moment (but for how long? [sigh]), it is the leader of the Conservative Party. _(Editor's note: This was written before the 2010 general election.)_

A/N for English readers: I know its a little anachronistic now, but, yes, that was IDS. If only because David Cameron would probably have got up and opened the door himself. :)


	3. Eakring

_**Eakring **(EE-kring), ptcpl. vb. Wondering what to do next when you've just stormed out of something._

"Fine!" Hermione shouted, leaping to her feet and shoving her book into her bag. "Fine! I give up! I'm leaving!" And she strode across the room, kicked the trapdoor open, and stomped down the ladder with such force that she nearly broke one or two of the weaker rungs.

When she reached the bottom, she stood breathing deeply for a few moments, as the full impact of what she'd just done sank in. She – she, Hermione Granger, Hogwarts's poster girl for academic diligence – had just walked out in the middle of a class.

On one level, she was horrified; on another, mildly impressed with herself. (_So Edward Granger's little girl had it in herself all this time, and we never knew it._) Mostly, though, she just felt relieved. At last, she was free of that wretched tower and Professor Trelawney's insufferable maunderings about doom and despair; at last, she could take all the energy that she had been using just to get through Divination without murdering someone, and use it on important things. Cheering Charms, for instance: she could go right now to Professor Flitwick and…

She stopped in the act of turning towards the stairwell. No, she couldn't go to Professor Flitwick; he was in the middle of a class right now. Besides, she had already arranged with him that she would make up the missed class on Sunday.

Well, then, she could always go to the library and… but no, that wouldn't do either. Madam Pince knew every student's schedule by heart; she'd never let someone into the library who was supposed to be in Divination. And, by the time Hermione had managed to explain the situation to her, it would be time for Arithmancy.

The common room, then? Maybe – unless Percy was there (which he probably was). That would be even worse than trying to explain to Madam Pince.

Of course, she could always use the Time-Turner and just skip straight to three o'clock – only she couldn't, because Time-Turners only sent you backward in time, never forward; Professor McGonagall had told her that at the beginning of term.

Well, then, what _was_ she supposed to do?

_You're _supposed_ to be in Divination, you little git,_ said a voice in her head._ If you'd swallowed your pride and behaved yourself back there, you wouldn't have a problem. You've no-one but yourself to blame if you don't know what to do with yourself now._

Whether this was the genuine voice of conscience speaking, or merely an inevitable delayed reaction from her guilt centres, is difficult to say. What is certain is that it sent her into an emotional tailspin. Tiredness, shame, and leftover anger all combined to convince her that she was a lazy, worthless idiot, who had stormed out of Divination not out of disgust at Professor Trelawney's woolly-headed anti-science, but simply because she couldn't bear to finish a class that she knew she was going to flunk. Ron's accusation, back at the beginning of the year, echoed in her head: _You just don't like being bad at something for a change!_

Tears stung at her eyes, blurring her vision as she strode with a desperate attempt at purposefulness down the stairwell and through the seventh-floor corridor. She barely noticed this, however, until she inadvertently stepped in a bucket of lemon water that she hadn't noticed was there, tripped, and came crashing to the ground in a cascade of robes and suds.

An indistinct figure in slate-coloured robes leaped up and began berating her, and she realised with a sinking sensation that she had interrupted Argus Filch in one of his charing duties. "Here!" he snapped. "What's the idea, you little imp? Can't a fellow even clean an infestation of gnome lichen off the walls without one of you rushing up and knocking his pail over?"

"I'm sorry, Mr Filch," said Hermione, wiping the moisture from her eyes hastily. "Truly, I am."

Filch snorted. "Now I'll have to go down to the lake and fill it back up again," he muttered. "What are you doing in the corridors at this hour, anyway? Haven't you some sort of class you're supposed to be attending?"

Hermione tried to respond, but she knew as soon as she opened her mouth that it was hopeless. If she couldn't explain to Percy or Madam Pince, she certainly couldn't explain to Filch.

"Well?" said the caretaker.

Hermione took a deep breath, and forced herself to say something – anything. What came out of her mouth, however, was something she couldn't possibly have expected. "Would you like some help with that, Mr Filch?"

The caretaker seemed as surprised as she was. "Help?" he repeated, blinking.

"Yes," said Hermione firmly. She had no idea where the thought had come from, but, now that she had said it, she intended to see it through. "Would you like me to refill the bucket? It would have to be easier for me than for you, carrying it up all those flights of stairs." (She tactfully didn't mention why.) "And then I could help you finish scrubbing the wall, too, if I have time before Arithmancy."

Filch stared at her for a moment or two, his expression clearly saying that, as far as he was concerned, the Apocalypse would be an anticlimax after this; then, wordlessly, he thrust the bucket toward her. Hermione took it with a smile and headed for the stairwell, feeling a warm glow of vindication. Slacking? Why, this was the most productive Divination hour she'd ever spent.


	4. Prague

_**Prague **(PRAHG), vb. To declaim loudly and pompously upon any subject about which one has less knowledge than at least one other person present._

* * *

As Lily sat at the Gryffindor table, stirring her bouillon with the apathy of a soul in conflict, a massive shadow fell over her place setting, and she looked up to see Horace Slughorn gazing down at her solicitously.

"Oh, hello, Professor," she murmured.

"Good evening, Miss Evans," said Slughorn. "I heard about your little altercation with Mr Snape this afternoon, and I thought I might come and extend my condolences."

"Thanks," said Lily indifferently. She didn't really want condolences; what she wanted was a little peace and quiet so she could work out how she felt about Severus now. She had come within an ace of skipping dinner so she could have the common room to herself; if she hadn't smelled the blueberry pie (her one great weakness) baking in the kitchens, she probably would have followed through with it.

"Shameful thing," Slughorn rumbled. "Surprising, too, coming from young Severus. I'd gotten the impression he was quite fond of you." (Lily winced.) "Besides, such an intelligent young man – one had hoped he'd be above such parochial prejudices."

"Well, he was under a lot of stress," Mary Macdonald commented from the other side of the table. "He just wanted to look tough, I suppose. Probably he didn't stop to think what a line he was crossing." (Lily rolled her eyes; she'd never met anyone like Mary for thinking the best of people. Even when Mulciber had almost turned her to stone that one time, all she had said was, "Dear me, I do hope he'll be more careful with his wand in the future.")

"That's no excuse," said Slughorn, raising his voice slightly. (Lily had the impression that he wanted the Slytherins to hear him, so they knew what their Head of House thought of their favourite slur. Old Sluggy could be quite gallant, at times.) "Miss Evans is a fine witch, a model student, and an admirable specimen of young womanhood all round. To suggest that she is somehow contaminated by having Muggle ancestors is outrageous, no matter what the circumstances."

Lily winced again. She knew Professor Slughorn meant well, but she didn't want Severus to be publicly humiliated again – and she wasn't thrilled about being extolled as "an admirable specimen of young womanhood" in front of the entire student body of Hogwarts. She lowered her head and stared fixedly into her soup bowl, hoping that someone would call the Potions master back to the faculty table before he did any more damage.

"Actually, that's not really what it means," said a new voice. Lily looked up again, and saw Marcus Lory twisting himself around to look at them from his seat at the Ravenclaw table.

Slughorn glanced down quizzically at him. "Beg pardon, Mr Lory?"

"The M-word," said Marcus. "We tend to assume that it means 'dirty blood', but it doesn't, really. It comes from the old pure-blood legends of descent from Väinämöinen, which…"

"Descent from _who_?" said a Gryffindor first year about five places to Lily's right.

"Väinämöinen," said Marcus. "You know, the great Finnish wizard that they wrote the _Kalevala _about? Back in the Founders' time, the theory was that all wizards were descended from him, rather than from Adam and Eve – that they were actually a separate race from Muggles. That's what Salazar Slytherin believed; that's why he never trusted Muggle-born wizards."

"Indeed?" said Slughorn. "And how does this justify the use of the word under discussion?"

"Well, Väinämöinen was supposed to be the son of the sky-goddess Ilmatar," said Marcus, "whereas Adam, of course, was created from the dust of the earth. So, in mediæval terminology, pure-blooded wizards were 'Sky-borns', or 'Air-borns', while Muggles were 'Earth-borns'."

"Airborne?" said a neighbouring Ravenclaw. "As in, what Quidditch players are?"

Marcus sighed. "Yes, that's why it generally gets translated the other way," he said. "It's technically incorrect, but it's less confusing, too."

"So when I play next week's match," Petheroe, the Ravenclaw Keeper, mused, "that'll make me an airborne Air-born, yes?"

"Not if we have anything to say about it!" shouted one of the Slytherin Beaters, provoking general laughter at that table.

"_Anyway_," said Marcus, "Muggles were 'Earth-borns', which meant that their descendants who had magical powers were 'Earth-blooded wizards', or simply 'Earth-bloods'. And so, when Slytherin's faction had gone on the offensive and was looking around for a good insult to hurl at the Muggle-born students at Hogwarts, it occurred to them to change 'earth' to the more offensive 'mud', and… well, the rest is history." He added, thoughtfully, "I suppose we should be grateful that they didn't take the next logical step, and start talking about 'Compost-Bloods'."

Lily rather wished he hadn't said that last bit. Marcus, though a perfect gentleman himself, had an unfortunate tendency to make abstract speculations that less savoury characters were all too willing to take seriously; she could just hear Avery, the next time she and Mary passed him in the corridors, saying, "Oh-oh, here comes the Compost-Blood Convention."

"How do you know all this, Marcus?" Mary wanted to know.

Marcus seemed surprised. "It's in the preface to _Nature's Nobility_," he said. "You know, the 'Historical Overview of the Wizarding Bloodlines' part." He glanced around at the blank looks on his schoolmates' faces. "What, doesn't anyone else read the reference texts in the school library?"

"Unbelievable," said Petheroe, shaking his head.

It was at this point that Horace Slughorn showed what sort of man he was. Many professors, no doubt, would have gotten on their dignity if a mere fourth year had corrected their etymology in front of the whole school. Not Slughorn. He looked at Marcus with an acquisitive gleam in his eye, as though wondering how he had managed to miss this one all these years.

"I say, Mr Lory," he said, "you know, I suppose, that I'm planning a little get-together after the match next week; I don't suppose you'd care…?"

Lily rose abruptly. "Excuse me, Professor," she said, "but would you mind having one of the house-elves send the rest of my dinner up to the common room? I think I need to lie down."

"Oh, of course," said Slughorn. "I quite understand. It's been a trying day for you."

"Thank you," said Lily, and strode briskly away from the table, doing her best to avoid catching Severus's eye.

"Not at all, not at all," Slughorn called after her. "Only too happy to oblige." He lowered his voice again. "Now, as I was saying, Mr Lory…"


	5. Wivenhoe

_**Wivenhoe** (WIV-en-hoh), n. The cry of alacrity with which a sprightly octogenarian breaks the ice on the lake when going for a swim on Christmas Eve._

As the wintry dawn broke over Hogwarts School, the great, oaken door creaked open, and Albus Dumbledore strode outside and inhaled a deep breath of frosty air.

"Lovely," he murmured to himself. "Much better conditions than last year. Sibyll will be terribly disappointed." (Professor Trelawney had predicted raging blizzards throughout the Christmas holidays.) "Well, let's get on with it."

He raised his wand, pointed it at the lake, and cried, with great zest, _"Glacifractus!"_ A jet of orange light shot from the end of his wand to the Black Lake, splintering the sheet of ice that covered it.

"At it again, are we, Headmaster?" said a hoarsely sardonic voice behind him. Dumbledore turned; standing behind him in the entrance hall, still clad in their dressing gowns, were Professor Snape and the new Arithmancy mistress, Theano Vector.

"Ah!" said Dumbledore brightly. "Morning, Severus, Theano. Care to join me for a little dip?"

His two subordinates exchanged glances. "Headmaster," said Snape, in much the same tone that he used when a student confused mistletoe juice and rattlesnake blood, "it is 24 December, and we are at latitude 59° N. Even the giant squid is not swimming in the Lake this morning."

"Well, that's because it's a mollusc," said Dumbledore. "The poor thing can't help itself. But you, Severus –" (and he clapped the Potions master on the shoulder) "– are a healthy mammal with a perfectly functional self-heating system. There's no need for _you_ to hibernate through the winter. Seize the day! Live life to its fullest!"

"Is he always like this on Christmas Eve morning?" said Vector.

Snape nodded solemnly. "We've already lost one Defence against the Dark Arts teacher to this little hobby of his," he said. "Poor Meridia had no conception what the touch of -20° water would do to someone with lamia blood."

"Yes, it was rather foolish of her," Dumbledore agreed. "But the Healers tell me that she's expected to regain consciousness any day now. And, in any event, her unfortunate limitations oughtn't to impede the rest of us any more than the squid's. Come now, you only live once."

"Yes, I do," Snape agreed. "And therefore I have no intention of wasting precious moments of that life in self-inflicted hypothermia. I shall spend this Christmas-Eve morning, as I have spent all Christmas-Eve mornings since I came to this castle, safely in my office with a cup of hot tea and a house-elf preparing a roaring fire. I feel this to be my duty; if the Head of Slytherin House doesn't set an example of sanity, most of the students at this school will never learn what it looks like." And he bowed to the Headmaster, bowed again to Professor Vector, and strode briskly from the entrance hall.

Dumbledore sighed. "A fine mind, Severus's," he said. "One only wishes it was a bit more open to new experiences." He turned to the lone remaining member of his staff. "Well, Theano, what say you?"

Vector hesitated. Her common sense was telling her to join Snape in declining the Headmaster's invitation, but, as was often the case with Theano Vector, her common sense was far from being the only motivation in play. For one thing, having only been on the Hogwarts faculty for four months, she was still in enough awe of Dumbledore to assume that anything he enjoyed doing must be a fitting occupation for one who aspired to his heights of wisdom. For another, she had, like many pure academics, a tendency to worry that she was letting the realities of life slip past while she analysed her theories of it, which made her uniquely vulnerable to the Headmaster's _carpe-diem_ argument.

"Well," she said slowly, "I suppose it couldn't hurt anything to try… perhaps…" She hesitated a second longer, and then took (so to speak) the plunge. "Yes, all right," she said. "Just this once."

Dumbledore beamed. "That's the spirit," he said, with such warm admiration in his voice that Vector couldn't help glowing with satisfaction. _Let Severus have his tea and his fire,_ she thought. _I'm going out to savour the fierce tang of existence with the greatest wizard in the world. How many people can say that?_

She turned toward the double doors of the Great Hall and broke into an eager run. She was halfway across the floor of the entrance hall when Dumbledore's voice reached her ears. "Taking a short cut, Theano?" he said, sounding puzzled.

Vector halted, and glanced over her shoulder. "Pardon?"

"Well, it's a small point, of course," said Dumbledore, "but, in my experience, it's a trifle easier to get to the Lake by heading _towards_ it."

Vector blinked for a moment, then realised. "Oh, I see," she said with a laugh. "No, I'm just popping up to my office to get a bathing-costume. I suppose you already have yours with you, but I hadn't planned on doing this, you see."

"Ah." Dumbledore nodded reflectively. "Yes, of course. A bathing-costume. Quite."

But there was something about the way he said it that introduced a sudden, unsettling doubt into Vector's mind. "You _do _have yours with you, Headmaster… don't you?"

"To the best of my knowledge, I don't even own one," said Dumbledore. "I believe I lent my last one to your predecessor when he went to that conference in Aruba. Hippasus was always dreadfully bad at returning things."

This put a new light on the matter. Vector licked her lips (which had suddenly gone dry) and ran a hand through her hair. "Er… actually, Headmaster, you know, I still have a number of mid-term exams to grade," she said. "It might be better… not that I shouldn't love to, of course, don't get that impression, but… well, you know, duty before pleasure, don't you think?"

"Oh, certainly," said Dumbledore with perfect gravity. (Vector thought she saw a tell-tale twinkle in his eye, but at that distance it was difficult to be sure.) "Another time, perhaps?"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Vector. "Well, er… good luck."

And, without waiting for a reply, she turned and fled for her office, reflecting, as she went, how fortunate it was that the board of governors supplied each professor with a private Pensieve. She had never before realised how tremendously important it could be, sometimes, to be able to siphon certain thoughts out of one's mind.


	6. Motspur

**_Motspur_**_ (MOT-SPER), n. The fourth wheel of a cart that looks identical to the other three, but renders the cart completely uncontrollable._

* * *

_September 1, 1989_

"Go on, have a bite," said the dreadlocked boy.

"Aye, go for it!" called one of the red-haired twins.

Demeter turned around, curious. Hadn't it been _their_ older brother who was speaking for them, telling them they couldn't have sweets because they'd be at Hogwarts soon? Something didn't quite add up.

_Pfftech__! _Something went flying across the car, sticking to an opposing window.

Raising her eyebrows, Demeter Vanished the gunk, while the dark-skinned girl angrily picked up her suitcase and stormed out of the car, over the boys' muddled apologies.

"They do mean _every_ flavor," Demeter unnecessarily informed them, as she moved onto the next car.

* * *

_June 22, 1991_

"Er, ma'am, is this the holidays?"

Identical twins in and of themselves did not unnerve her, but the way they spoke with the exact same intonation rather did. Even the same stammer at the beginning. Surely they had to plan it out?

"I...suppose?" she shrugged.

"Only," one of them began while the other glared at him, "we're not in the Muggle world yet, we're still on the train, and you're a witch and all. Really you wouldn't say the _holidays_ have properly started yet until we're on the other side of the King's Cross barrier. Would you?"

"Er, no," she said distractedly.

"Brilliant!" he grinned, and the other smiled nervously. "And since the holidays haven't started yet, that means we can still do magic!"

"Why don't you get back to your—" she began, but the other twin cast a charm that seemed like an attempt to conjure a Quaffle and instead produced a red, soggy mess. As she Vanished it, the other opened the nearby window.

That was the problem with twins.

* * *

_September 1, 1991_

"Hullo. Have you seen my toad? He is small and green."

"No, I'm sorry," said Demeter, pushing the cart a little further.

"Oi, George, give me the tarantula back."

"Don't look at me, Fred had it."

"Quit joking, I gave it to you."

"But that means—"

"STOP THE CART!" bellowed a voice from behind, and three from in front of, Demeter. She froze, but as her momentum carried her forward, stepped to the left. The front of the cart swung right. One of the twins jumped to the floor and groped at something, missing and almost hitting Demeter's foot. As she stepped forward, the other one had to get out of the way of the cart. As the dreadlocked boy nonchalantly plucked something from off a nearby seat, the small boy froze in a corner as if petrified.

"It's all right," called the dreadlocked one, now cupping something in his hands. "He wouldn't have eaten your toad, I don't think, lookit, his mouth isn't that big." He dumped it in a box he had tucked under his arm. "Right, then."

* * *

_June 19, 1993_

"Two knaves…pair! Two ladies…pair! Two…"

_Boom!_

Demeter raised her eyebrows as she entered the compartment. Not those twins again. A couple of their siblings left school and all they got was a couple more. Younger, more impressionable ones.

"Anything off the cart?" she echoed monotonously, glaring at the little girl.

"No, thanks," said a brown-haired girl. Not related, she didn't think.

Seeing her stare, one of the twins said, "It's all right, ma'am, we were just putting the cards away."

"We were?" said the other one.

"Yeah. Of course we were. These fireworks aren't going to light themselves."

Even once she'd hustled two cars down, Demeter could still hear the explosions, and shivered. At least she couldn't smell them.

* * *

_September 1, 1993_

The train slowed to a halt. Outside, the wind and rain grew ever stronger. Almost there, yes, but had they really arrived? Something felt off.

The lights went out. Demeter shivered—yes, she'd been told to expect the guards, but did they have to make so dramatic an entrance? She could hear the students muttering. Well, it saved her having to deal with the class of '96 any longer, but at what cost?

The door opened and immediately the car fell cold. The chill deepened all around her—_I'm larger than the students_, she dimly thought, _they think I'm the threat._ "Just an old lady with her candy," she said, her voice sounding fainter than she'd expected.

Another few but prolonged moments of chill and damp, and then the Dementor had left.

Rustling noises from the seats. She considered casting _Lumos_ but decided against it—the Dementors had a criminal to hunt down. Better to let them be about their business. Sure enough, the lights came back on in time.

She glanced around the car, taking stock of her stock. "All right, you two," she said, glaring at the twins. "Cough up."

"What?" one burst, indignantly. "We didn't make that—that thing."

"Of course not," she said. "But you did nick some Chocolate Frogs from the cart in the dark. Hand them over."

* * *

_July 3, 1995_

"_Evanesco_," Demeter murmured, Vanishing the Chocolate Frog wrappers that littered the car. For once, she didn't mentally scold the children who had already disembarked. In times like those, chocolate could sometimes be just the thing.

As she stepped towards the next compartment, she froze. Three students were lying on the floor, unconscious and covered in hex marks. "_Finite!_" she repeated. "_Episkey__!__ Rennervate!_ Oh, you poor dears, what happened?"

"Those gits," drawled one of them as they stood up, pointing towards the next car. "Potter and his Gryffindor lackeys."

Eyes narrowing, Demeter flung open the door, only to catch a glimpse of the red-haired twins leaping onto the platform beyond.

* * *

_June 29, 1996_

The cart was stuck.

The front wheels seemed to be working fine, granted, and she could hold it up like a wheelbarrow. Even the back right one worked all right. But put it on all four wheels and the thing refused to budge. Propping it up, she trundled through the door of the next car.

"Are you all right?" one girl asked.

"No, I'm not!" she grunted, dropping the cart entirely. "This wheel is stuck and it won't move! Those infernal twins have to be behind this somehow, I just know it."

"You mean the Weasley twins?" called a girl from across the compartment. "Can't be them, they dropped out of school."

Demeter blinked. "You mean… they're not on the train?" she managed to blurt.

"Nope."

Demeter was dazed. After all of the hijinks she had been forced to tolerate, she was stymied by something they had absolutely nothing to do with? And the last she'd seen of them would have been...not Easter, not Christmas. Just the trip down at the beginning of the year, and they'd positively _behaved_ then! Although she never would have admitted it, it made a disappointing anticlimax.

"It's just a bum wheel, I get those all the time at the grocery store," said the girl who had spoken first. "Here, let me give you a hand."

* * *

**By Ember Nickel**


End file.
